Alok Choksi

Associate, New York

Biography

Overview

Alok Choksi is an associate in the Capital Markets group in New York. Mr. Choksi advises and represents investment banks, domestic issuers (including special purpose acquisition companies) and foreign private issuers in equity securities offerings, including registered offerings (such as initial public offerings, follow-on offerings, confidentially marketed public offerings, registered direct offerings and at-the-market program offerings) and private placements (such as PIPEs and 144A/Regulation S offerings). He also counsels public companies on disclosure issues, ongoing reporting and corporate governance practices. He works with companies in a wide range of industries, including aviation, biopharma, biotech, healthcare, education, energy, media/telecom, oil and gas, and technology, among others.

Bars and Courts
New York State Bar
Education
JD
Vanderbilt Law School
MS
Finance
Vanderbilt University
BA
University of Pennsylvania
Languages
English
Gujarati

Experience

Representation of Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. as representative of the underwriters on the US$115 million initial public offering of 7,187,500 shares of Class A common stock (including the underwriter's full exercise of its overallotment option for 937,000 shares of Class A common stock) by Backblaze, Inc. Oppenheimer & Co. Inc., William Blair & Company, L.L.C. and Raymond James & Associates, Inc. acted as lead book-running managers for this offering. JMP Securities LLC and B. Riley Securities, Inc. acted as joint book-running managers for this offering. Lake Street Capital Markets, LLC acted as co-manager for this offering. Backblaze, Inc. is a leading storage cloud platform, providing businesses and consumers cloud services to store, use, and protect their data in an easy and affordable manner.

Representation of Guggenheim Securities, LLC, as representative of the underwriters, on the US$75 million equity follow-on offering of 1,875,000 shares of Class A common stock of Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, Inc. ('1CSSE'1). The underwriters had an over-allotment option for a period of 30 days to purchase 281,250 additional shares of Class A common stock of CSSE (for a total of 2,156,250 shares of Class A common stock). Guggenheim Securities, LLC and Needham& Company, LLC acted as joint book-running managers for the offering. Northland Securities, Inc., D.A. Davidson & Co., The Benchmark Company, LLC, Ladenburg Thalmann & Co. Inc. and Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC acted as co-managers for the offering.

Representation of Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC as the sole underwriter in Iron Spark I Inc.'s approximately US$166.8 million initial public offering of Class A common stock (including the underwriter's partial exercise of its overallotment option for 1,680,000 shares of Class A common stock) on The Nasdaq Capital Market. Iron Spark I Inc. is a blank check company formed for the purpose of effecting a merger, capital stock exchange, asset acquisition, stock purchase, reorganization or similar business combination with one or more businesses, focusing on the athletic and wellness industry. The Iron Spark SPAC IPO was warrantless, but featured a quarterly dividend of $0.05 per share of Class A common stock to its public stockholders.

Representation of BofA Securities, Inc., Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, Banco Bradesco BBI S.A., Citigroup Global Markets Inc., and Itau BBA USA Securities, Inc. as the several Underwriters in connection with the approximately US$1.0 billion global offering of an aggregate of 121,400,000 common shares of Natura &Co Holding S.A., of which (i) 25,069,000 common shares common shares were issued and sold in the form of 12,534,500 American Depositary Shares ('1ADSs'1), each ADS representing two common shares of the Company, in the United States and elsewhere outside of Brazil and (ii) 96,331,000 common shares were issued and sold concurrently in Brazil. Natura &Co is a global, purpose-driven, multi-channel and multi-brand cosmetics group which includes Avon, Natura, The Body Shop and Aesop.

 Representation of J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC and SVB Leerink LLC as representatives of the underwriters on multiple follow-on offerings with an aggregate value of US$675 million of Intra-Cellular Therapies, Inc., a U.S. biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of therapeutics for central nervous system disorders.  Mr. Choksi also represented SVB Leerink LLC as sales agent in connection with the establishment of the at-the-market (ATM) offering program relating to the issuance and sale of shares of common stock having aggregate sale proceeds of up to US$75 million by Intra-Cellular Therapies, Inc.

Representation of Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC and Itau BBA USA Securities, Inc. in the US$265.3 million secondary offering by certain selling shareholders of 5,563,203 Class A common shares of Arco Platform Ltd. (NASDAQ: ARCE), a company that provides a complete pedagogical system with technology-enabled features to deliver educational content to private primary and secondary schools in Brazil. The total number of Class A common shares consists of 5,503,203 Class A common shares offered by General Atlantic Arco (Bermuda), L.P. and 60,000 Class A common shares offered Alfaco Holding Inc.

Representation of Minerva S.A. on a Rule 144A/Regulation S equity follow-on offering of 95 million common shares, of which the Company issued and sold 80 milliion common shares, and VDQ Holdings S.A. sold 15 million common shares, resulting in gross proceeds to the Company of R$1,040.0 million (approximately US$250 million). BTG Pactual US Capital, LLC, J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, Bradesco Securities, Inc., Banco de Brasil Securities LLC and Itau BBA USA Securities, Inc. acted as the joint bookrunners for this offering. The Company is one of the leading Brazilian producers of fresh and frozen beef, industrialized protein products (including beef, pork and poultry), live cattle and cattle by-products (including treated leather and offal), in addition to one of the leading exporters of beef in South America. The Company's common shares trade on the Novo Mercado segment of the São Paulo Stock Exchange (B3 S.A. - Brasil, Bolsa, Balcão).

Representation of the issuer, Tufin Software Technologies Ltd., an Israeli security automation company, in its US$78.6 million follow-on public offering of 4,621,347 ordinary shares (including the underwriters' partial exercise of its overallotment option for 341,465 ordinary shares) offered by certain selling shareholders. J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, Barclays Capital Inc. and Jefferies LLC acted as book-running managers of the offering and representatives of the underwriters.

Representation of SVB Leerink LLC and Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Incorporated as sales agents in connection with the establishment of the at-the-market (ATM) offering program relating to the issuance and sale of shares of common stock having aggregate sale proceeds of up to US$75 million by Kura Oncology, Inc., a U.S. clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of precision medicines for oncology.

Representation of Jefferies LLC, SVB Leerink LLC and Mizuho Securities USA LLC as representatives of the underwriters in on multiple follow-on offerings with an aggregate value of US$250 million follow-on offering of 12,283,334 ordinary shares by Wave Life Sciences Ltd., a genetic medicines company focused on delivering transformational therapies for patients with serious, genetically-defined diseases.  Mr. Choksi also represented SVB Securities LLC as sole bookrunning manager on the US$70 million equity follow-on offering of 25,464,483 ordinary shares and pre-funded warrants to purchase up to 7,093,656 ordinary shares of Wave Life Sciences Ltd.